WLA Board of Directors Evaluation of Current Legislation Concerning Asbestos Victims

RE: HR. 1283, S. 785, Oct. 12 Hyde discussion Draft, National Asbestos Relief and Compensation Act of 1999.

These bills all represent the efforts of Sam Heyman, one of the world's richest men, to escape personal responsibility for the harm caused by his company GAF. They are all written by his paid servant, Chris Edley of Harvard University and distributed by various paid agents of Heyman's lawyer, Richard Wienberg. These bills represent the crudest maneuver to take a terrible social problem which effects over one million U.S. citizens and use it to personally benefit the owner of a building materials corporation. The current success of these bills to get into and out of committees show us how low Congress has crawled to do the bidding of polluters. These bills create a federal bureaucracy or use the most reactionary court, Special Claims, to evaluate all victims and deny victims the right they have now to go to state or federal court. These bills are based on the Louisiana Agreements.

These agreements were made between asbestos companies and mega lawyers. They discard some groups of asbestos victims. They set very low amounts of compensation. They eliminate spouses and children from benefits. They limit or forbid medical benefits. They demand black workers have more disability in order to get paid. They allow the companies to pay a token amount and then pay the rest the future.

These bills would set up an unfunded government bureaucracy or farm out the work to insurance companies as payment mechanisms which would replace civil action, toxic torts and maybe even programs like Long Shore and Harbor Workers Act. These bills would eliminate pleural plaques (thickening of all of the lung) as a disability which could be compensated for. These bills would overturn state laws which would pay victims for lung cancer caused by asbestos. These bills would eliminate payment to over one half of current asbestos lung cancer victims. These bills would stall payments for mesothelioma by allowing company doctors to diagnose mesothelioma as a non-asbestos condition. These bills would forbid the award of punitive damages no matter how deliberate, malicious or unconscionable the acts of the asbestos companies were. On current draft would include punitive damages only equal to compensation damages. These bills would allow the asbestos companies to oppose every claim made to the bureaucracy in charge of paying the victims. These bills do not make the asbestos manufacturers give up their money, insurance coverage or provide any money. The federal bureaucracy set up by the bills is not funded and must itself sue the companies to get money to pay the victims. This is another weakness of the bills, no money for asbestos victims

Asbestos companies can gain protection from this bill and it costs them nothing except contributions to members of congress and pay for lobbyists to push it. The consolidated cases would be shipped to Judge Weiner in Philadelphia. He currently has the 30,000 federal court asbestos victims cases. Judge Weiner has not moved these cases for over eight years. To send cases to Judge Weiner is to warehouse them in the judicial graveyard. Judge Weiner has proven incapable of hearing the needs and pleas and legal rights of asbestos victims. The bills would end all existing settlement agreements if they have not taken effect at the time of the passage of the legislation.

For asbestos victims, these bills stink. If your lawyer has filed your case and waited three years or more to get it heard, then the companies settle on the courthouse steps and before the settlement can take effect, these bills swoop down and take it away. Then you are paid peanuts. These bills only act to slow down the already terribly slow process. They reduce the already small amount going to the asbestos victims. They allow the companies to stall even longer than they do now. They still preserve lawyer fees for both sides as opposed to guaranteeing asbestos victims payment. These bills pretend to allow a victim to op-out and sue, but they slow the process and complicate the lawsuit even more. Many judges will not accept a law suit and force the victim to eat the federal peanuts provided by these bills. We do not want any parts of Gorgine or Louisiana or any of the other settlement deals which have made the lawyers rich and have codified conditions restrictive to asbestos victims. Even if the asbestos victims' case has been filed, some settlement reached, it is covered by these bills if the trial has not actually started. There are over 30,000 cases in court and only a few dozen in trial.

These bills would steal the cases in court but not in trail and force them to accept the federal peanuts. The US Federal court would review any disputed medical claim. This is disaster for asbestos victims. This court is very sympathetic to the asbestos polluters and has ruled many times to eliminate asbestos victims from the compensation that they deserved and qualified for. The court is also slow and often Judge Weiner is the Judge who represents Federal Court. These bills are being greased up by the propaganda that the asbestos victims are not really impaired, hurt or disabled. The facts are that a person has injury form the first time they inhale asbestos fibers. Inflammation itself is an injury and a serious one. This is constant with an asbestos victim. The health of asbestos victims continues to get worse as time goes on. The asbestos aggravates the immune system and causes infections in the body from the beginning. The decrease of lung capacity directly effects the function of the heart. Asbestos has been established as the causal agent in multiple site cancers.

Asbestos exposure is a national tragedy and must be addressed with solving all aspects of the tragedy. The asbestos companies do not have enough money to pay for the horrible human and environmental mess they have created. All their insurance and other assets must be evaluated to act as a base of a payment mechanism. Legal rights and constitutional guarantees to civil court action cannot be exchanged without receiving guaranteed payments for all those disabled by asbestos exposure. There is no doubt at all those who profit from asbestos must pay to solve the problem. The U.S. and State governments must also pay due to the fact they allowed this tragedy to take place. A brief review of history will show the tremendous influence of asbestos corporations on the medical, legal and legislative communities. Do we now see history repeats itself? No, these bills must be regarded as a stupid waste of good trees and an attack on asbestos victims and the people of the United States.

Draft for discussion prepared Oct. 14, 1999
Approved Oct. 15, 1999
Distribution Oct. 16, 1999
For further information see New York Times article, 10-16-99, section through
How a company Lets Its Cash